Bobby Knight Player Quotations

We should not have to push you to work hard, you should work hard because you want to be a great player.

Players must be able to carry out simple instructions from the bench to the court. If they can't, then they can't play

I've never felt my job was to win basketball games - rather, that the essence of my job as a coach was to do everything I could to give my players the background necessary to succeed in life.

Perform drills that force your players to think

The goal is to make practice more difficult, physically/mentally, than anything your players will face during a game.

I think the ability to motivate might be interpreted as the ability to lead, or to show people their goals or, perhaps more important, what their potential is - as a person as well as a player. You've got to show players that being part of a team will carry over to the experience of becoming part of society.

My overall point is that 'one and dones' are not healthy for college basketball. I should not have made it personal to Kentucky and its players and I apologize.

I've always had an a$$-to-the-brain theory. When a player's a$$ gets put on the bench, a message goes straight to the brain saying, Get me off of here.

A quick way for any player to make himself better is to think about what he himself doesn't like to play against

He said he didn't feel like he was helping the team and he didn't want to play anymore. I told him I was sorry it didn't work out for him. He said he didn't blame me, but I always blame myself when a player doesn't get out of it what we thought he could.